


The Heart of the Matter

by ultragirlvfr750



Category: Major Crimes, The Closer
Genre: F/F, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-01
Updated: 2014-11-21
Packaged: 2018-02-23 10:54:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2544998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ultragirlvfr750/pseuds/ultragirlvfr750
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Special Agent Fritz Howard takes over as Deputy Chief Howard and heads up the new Special Operations Branch, Commander Ann McGinnis has to deal with having a new boss, and one she's not sure is up to the job.  Captain Sharon Raydor and now Special Investigator Brenda Leigh Johnson contend with the upcoming re-trial of Phillip Stroh, the toll that may take on Rusty and the ins an outs of adopting the teen together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Never a Dull Moment

**Author's Note:**

> This story takes place in the Major Crimes universe- but as it’s fanfic I have taken some liberties with the universe for the purposes of this story. Deputy Chief Fritz Howard is divorced from former Deputy Chief Brenda Leigh and Brenda and Sharon are in a relationship. Brenda continues to be a special investigator at the DA’s office and her work is starting to bump her up against the LAPD. This creates interesting issues for the Major Crimes Division as her lover Sharon is obviously at the helm and her ex is now the head of SOB. I wanted to create a story where Rusty still has an ongoing relationship with Brenda Leigh – also I so want Brenda to be involved in the adoption process so if you're not interested in Rusty having two Mom's this is not going to be the story for you. I loved that Rusty didn’t want to be called “Rusty Raydor” because it sounded too much like a cartoon character and in that moment I immediately started wondering about him taking Brenda’s last name – Rusty Johnson. Also – as much as this is going to be a Brenda/Sharon pairing (with what I hope is a fleshed out story AND some mature content that I know y’all like), I am also fascinated with Commander Ann McGinnis so you’ll find a certain amount of her in here as she negotiates around her new relationship with Dep Chief Howard….wherever that is heading. This is my very first foray into fanfiction so comments are definitely appreciated.

1.

Commander Ann McGinnis was exhausted. She didn’t need the dark circles or the red rims around her usually piercing blue eyes staring back at her in the mirror to tell her that. The ache in her arms and across her shoulders would have been enough to remind her that after the high adrenaline rescue of her officer Kate, who Ann swore she would never lend out to another Division again, she’d called Frankie and hit the gym for a gruelling 2 hour boxing session that had left her soaked in sweat and as physically wrung out as she was mentally. Frankie had worked her mercilessly, ‘jab, punch, hook, body shot’, over and over he’d danced her around the ring and she’d launched herself at him with all the ferocity he’d come to expect from her in the four years since he’d started training her. “Body, face, body face”, he’d kept calling out the combinations all the while advancing and lunging. She’d pushed him back and attacked him with her usual calculated precision but near the end of the session with her sides throbbing and her sweat running into her eyes she’d started to lose it. She hammered away at his midsection and then hearing the satisfying smack of her gloves against the hand targets as she levelled hook after hook to his face, all Ann could think about was Kate. Sweet Kate. Tough Kate. Young Kate. 

God she was so young and she’d almost gotten killed. Rationally Ann knew it wasn’t her fault, all her officers knew the risks when they took the oath. Hell, that was the reason that most of them signed up and trained for Special Operations Branch in the first place   
   
Ann sighed and scraped her blonde hair back from her forehead and secured it in its’ usual, practical ponytail. 

Kate was different because she was young, and she was blonde, and Goddamnit if she didn’t look entirely like what Ann imagined Amy would look like at her age. Amy, her charming daughter who used to hurl herself off the monkey bars on the schoolyard without a second look down to see where she’d fall. Amy, who hated orange juice. Amy with her inquisitive brown eyes, so much like Jeff’s, who questioned everything. Amy, her beautiful little girl who had been just turned gawky, her coltish legs tangling together when she ran, sprinting head-long toward the teenager, and eventually the woman she would become. Except not now. Not anymore. Not ever. But, when Ann looked at Kate, the carefree way she smiled, how she unconsciously tossed her hair out of her eyes, She reminded her so deeply of Amy that to Ann it felt like drowning.

The lithe Commander ripped her eyes from the mirror, holstered her service weapon and stalked into the living room of the small condo she had moved to after disposing of the house she’d kept in her previous life. The life where she’d been a wife, and a mother and not just a rising star in the LAPD’s tactical unit. She carefully locked up the memory of her daughter in the its customary place at the back of her mind. Amy was never really out of her thoughts but Ann couldn’t afford to have her at the forefront. What she needed to do was work. Work and boxing had served to fill in the gaping hole where her husband and daughter used to be. Routine was the only thing that kept her sane in those first few months after the accident. Get up. Make coffee. Go to work. Take down suspects. Meet Frankie at Golden Gloves (an utterly pretentious name for a gym but it was cheap and the guys knew better than to hit on her) and pummel the heavy bag, or spar with Frankie, until she couldn’t lift her arms. Go home. Shower. Fall into bed. Rinse. Repeat. Over time Ann had reached a place of equanimity. It’s not that the wounds had healed but the pain was just different.

Almost losing Kate yesterday had brought it all crashing back. The horror, and if Ann was honest, the crippling loss of control, of having to stand helplessly by as Captain Sharon Raydor took command. Kate was her officer. Ann should have been calling the shots and instead she had to step back and grind her teeth as the Captain moved at her meticulous, cautious pace through the investigation. Ann wasn’t a stupid woman. She recognized that her inability to run the investigation, to do anything cut too close to home. There hadn’t been anything she could do on the night that a very drunk and coked out Megan Foster crossed the center line and plowed directly into Ann’s sensible Toyota Matrix either. Only Ann hadn’t been driving. She was working a standoff and while she waited with her partner for tactical air support her husband and daughter were blown into a guardrail. Crushed. And she couldn’t do a thing to stop it. Didn’t even know it had happened until her commanding officer had called her off the detail and sent her to the hospital. By then it had been too late. 

Yesterday it had almost been too late for Kate. 

Ann shook her head. She really needed to get a grip. It was bad enough that Captain-By-the-Book had almost dragged her off that filthy human trafficker, but the fact that her new Deputy Chief had found it necessary to forcibly yank her off the suspect like a rabid dog was embarrassing in the extreme. She didn’t regret her actions but she needed to pick her moments a little better. At least until she figured out the direction her new boss was going to to play it. 

Ann found herself wistfully wishing that the roles were reversed and that it was her Deputy Chief’s ex-wife taking on the role at Special Operations. Ann much preferred former Deputy Brenda Leigh Johnson’s more creative methods to getting the job done. It suited Ann’s shoot first and ask questions later attitude. Sometimes when the moments counted tough decisions needed to be made and in her line of work, the suspects she saw everyday, you didn’t always have time to dot your ‘i’s’ and cross all your ’t’s’. Chief Johnson had understood that and Ann McGinnis had been secretly disappointed when the previous head of Major Crimes had been summarily, if not politically, dismissed. 

Scuttlebutt in the department was that she’d rewarded her husband’s loyalty and support during the lengthy investigation into her actions by summarily leaving him, and in a move that stunned almost everyone, shacking up with her replacement - the new head of Major Crimes. Ann didn’t know what was more surprising, the fact that Miss-Thank-Yew-Very-Much had discovered she was gay so late in her life or that Captain Sharon Raydor, the ice queen of FID, actually had a heart beating somewhere under those sharply tailored suits. Ann snorted, she couldn't really trust any female police officer who wore stilettos to work, although she had heard that Raydor was fairly handy with a beanbag gun. 

It remained to be seen whether or not her new superior officer was going to be handy with anything other than a field manual and a pencil. Howard had looked tired and drawn when she’d last seen him and as far as she could tell he was beginning his tenure as he head of Special Operations handing off what should have been a search for her, correction make that their, missing officer to his ex-wife’s lover cautioning her against the very actions that SOB were specifically trained for in the first place.  
 Her cell phone vibrated and Ann checked the display. Bloody hell, it was as though thinking of him could conjure him out of thin air  
“HOWARD” flashed across her screen. (Howard was shorter than Deputy Chief Howard and Lord knows Ann wasn’t going to programme him into her phone under “Fritz”. What kind of name was that anyway?)

“Jesus wept”, her shift didn’t start for an hour.   
Ann had the feeling he was going to be a micro-manager.

“McGinnis”, she barked into the phone.

“Commander.”, the voice on the other end of the line was mild . “I know your shift doesn’t start for another hour but there’s some things I’d like to go over with you before we roll out your squad this morning. About yesterday. If you don’t mind”.  Ann rolled her eyes. Was he asking or ordering?

“Is that a direct order, Sir”?

There was a pause and then a slightly steelier tone, “I’d like you in my office in half an hour. Can you manage that Commander?”

“Copy that,” she stabbed at the ‘end call’ button and tossed the phone into her bag.

Ann had a feeling that this was going to turn into a spectacularly shitty day. She was being haunted by the ghost of her daughter, one of her officers had almost been shipped to Mexico in a crate and her new boss had probably spent the last half of his previous career sitting on his ass in an FBI van eating crappy takeout and listening to wire-taps. She had a bitch of a headache and now she wouldn’t even have time to stop for coffee on the way to Parker Center.

Yes, Deputy Chief Fritz Howard was going to be a royal pain in her ass. 

2.

 

Brenda awoke with a sharp inhale; her eyes flew open her hands clawing desperately twisting in the pale lavender sheets. As her vision grew accustomed to the dim light she willed her breathing to slow and her fists to unclench.   
“It’s ok Brenda, just a dream, not real, not happenin’, just a dream”, she repeated silently to herself as she instinctively reached out for the woman in her bed. Their bed. Sharon. Thank God Sharon was there just as she had been when they went to sleep the night before and the night before that. 

But the images in Brenda’s recurring nightmare wouldn’t dissolve so easily and Brenda curled up next to the sleeping brunette, gently sliding her arm over Sharon’s waist her fingers trailing lightly until they found the swell of Sharon’s breast. Brenda cupped it softly and felt the nipple harden. Sleep didn’t seem to deter Sharon’s arousal where Brenda was concerned. She hummed and shifted her body closer to her lover, arching her breast harder against Brenda’s palm.

“Mmm, what time is it, sugar?”

A thrill shot through Brenda’s body. She never tired of Sharon’s secret nickname for her and even in the aftermath of her dream she relished the tingle in her body that Sharon’s husky voice created.

“S nothin’ Shar. I just had a bad dream is all. Go back to sleep”.

Sharon shifted further, turning on her side and wrapping her arms around   
Brenda, pulling her close and bringing Brenda’s head to rest against her.

“Is it the same nightmare, the one about Phillip Stroh?” Sharon asked her voice low and full of tenderness.

Brenda bit her bottom lip and simply nodded, the movement brushing her hair across Sharon’s breasts. The older woman shivered involuntarily.

“I don’t, I can’t get there. I can’t get there in time.” Brenda’s voice was raw. “An’ he’s on Rusty, I can’t make it. Oh God, Shar I’m tryin’, I’m tryin’ to shoot him but my gun’s jammed. Rusty’s just bleedin’ out and he’s just standin’ there laughin’. Goddamn Phillip Stroh.”

She says his name with such venom and Sharon can feel the tears leaking out from beneath Brenda’s lashes.

“Hey,” Sharon breathed and sat up pulling Brenda with her. She cupped the younger woman’s face with one hand, long slender fingers gently wiping away the tears. “It was just a dream. You did get there in time. Phillip Stroh is sitting in jail where is going to stay for the rest of his miserable life and it is a very good thing that you did not pull the trigger.”   
 Brenda was soothed by the cadence in her Captain’s measured words. Even in bed in the early hours of the morning, naked and with her hair a riot of chocolate curls (a follicular state in which her squad would be privy to only over her flayed and dead body), Sharon Raydor’s words carried power. 

“For Heaven’s sake how did he manage to get another trial? I swear it’s like the worst whack-a-mole ever. No matter how many times you smack him down he just keeps poppin’ his slimy head up somewhere else.” Brenda pouted.

Sharon’s eyes crinkled and she couldn’t contain her laughter.

“What? It’s not funny.”

“It’s just I am envisioning something like a cross between a ground squirrel and a snake and you in one of those ridiculous floral outfits wielding a hammer…..” Sharon bit her lip trying unsuccessfully not to laugh harder.  
“Here I am, sharin’ my scary dreams with you and you’re policin’ my metaphors Capt’n Raydor” Brenda grabbed a pillow and swatted her lover, albeit lightly, over the head with it.

“I’m really sorry.” Sharon ducked. “Do NOT hit me with that, you’ll ruin my hair.” 

Now it was Brenda’s turn to laugh. “I hate to break it to you Shar but if you could see what you look like right now, trust me, a pillow fight is not going to muss up your hair.”

“Oh really?” Sharon’s voice was soft but her moss green eyes, just inches now from Brenda’s gleamed with intensity. “And just what could possibly, in your opinion Brenda Leigh, appropriately muss up my hair- as you so charmingly put it- this morning?” 

Sharon’s mouth was suddenly so close to Brenda’s that she could feel the Captain’s breath whisper across her lips like a ghost of a kiss.   
Without breaking eye contact Brenda slid her hands slowly up Sharon’s shoulders revelling again in the feel of silky skin under her palms. She traced the freckles that dusted across Sharon’s shoulders and her fingertips brushed the line of Sharon’s jaw. She ran her thumb gently across the brunette’s mouth, sliding it over her bottom lip. She felt the older woman shiver as she bent her head and kissed the side of Sharon’s mouth. She slid her thumb back and forth across Sharon’s bottom lip all the while teasing her, nipping at the side of her mouth with the smallest of kisses. Her other hand found its way to Sharon’s mass of thick, dark hair and she wound her fingers into the curls.

“How’m I doin’ so far?” she murmured against Sharon’s mouth.

“Jesus,” was all Sharon was able to manage.

“If you’re describin’ a religious experience Capt’n I’m more than happy to oblige.”

“Stop talking,” the words mingled with Brenda’s mouth as Sharon kissed her long and slow. Her tongue darted against Brenda’s, gently at first and then with more urgency. 

Sharon’s hands flew to Brenda’s breast, rolling the taut nipple back and forth between her fingertips. Brenda let out a little cry and tipped her head back to allow Sharon better access to her neck. Sharon trailed kisses down the length of that perfect alabaster column heady with the mixture of scents, slightly floral perfume, shampoo and something darker, the musky scent that drifted off her skin when Brenda was aroused.  
Sharon pushed Brenda gently back onto the bed, parting her legs with one knee, pressing her thigh urgently into the heat of Brenda’s sex. She could already feel how wet her lover was and Brenda squirmed in anticipation, thrusting her hips upward against Sharon’s taut thigh.

“Yes, Shar…’ her voice low and hectic

“Yes, what?” Sharon teased, pulling her thigh back and blowing lightly across Brenda’s breasts marvelling in how the nipples tightened.

“Just, don’t stop”. She pulled Sharon’s head down and crushed their lips together at the same time arching her back and sought to press herself hard into Sharon’s thigh. Brenda could feel her Captain all along the length of her body, the swell of her belly slightly soft against her own. Her hands roamed across Sharon’s shoulders, her fingers trailed down the knobs of her spine, kneading and teasing until they came to rest on the swell of Sharon’s ass. Her fingers splayed open as her palms gripped the outside of her lover’s thighs pulling at her tighter, harder. 

Their kisses deepened as Brenda lost herself in the rhythm of their rocking hips. She thrust harder and harder and Sharon met her, pressing her wet mound against Brenda’s. Through her folds she could feel her clit, swollen and slick. Brenda was making little mewling sounds in Sharon’s ear, her thighs and ass clenching, tightening as she rode the crest of her pleasure. The friction against Sharon was impossibly delicious and she realized she was close to falling over the edge. 

When they made love in the evenings Sharon took her time, drawing out each kiss and caress driving Brenda nearly insane with wanting before she brought her over that edge but this morning, coming out of the depth of sleep to Brenda’s nightmare and then to this desire for the lithe blonde Sharon didn’t want to wait, didn’t want to draw anything out. All she wanted was the heat raging between them and to tumble along with Brenda into that place of mindless pleasure. 

Brenda cradled Sharon’s ass in her hands, driving, grinding their hips together, holding them taut. Sharon arched her back and they both shattered, coming together, falling and Brenda was vaguely aware of her guttural cries blending with Sharon’s “Suggggar….”

Her breath came in ragged gasps and Sharon sank boneless into Brenda’s embrace, their legs entwined, her head resting in the hollow of the blonde’s neck.

“Did you just?…” Brenda’s was breathless.

“Indeed I did”, Brenda could hear the smile in Sharon’s voice.

“Oh.” she breathed. “Wow, just. Wow.”

Sharon rolled onto her side and propped herself on one elbow gracing her lover with a smile that softened her face. Her squad would never have recognized her. A smirk played at the corner of her mouth.

“I can now check off the tick box in another one of my life goals.”

“Oh?” Brenda raised one eyebrow

“It seems I have managed to successfully render 'the Great Atlanta closer' completely speechless.”

“What?” Brenda cried, “What? No”.

“I prove my point.” 

“Ohhh you terrible woman,” if Brenda had been standing up instead of sprawled on the bed her expression said she would have been stomping her feet. Instead, she settled for reaching up and tweaking Sharon’s nipple. Just once.

“Well, I wasn’t the one yellin’ out terms of endearment at critical moments”, she retorted. “I sure hope Rusty sleeps with his ipod thingy on”.

“Me?” Sharon’s face was incredulous “I wasn’t the one mewing incoherently.”

“Mewing?” Brenda’s voice went up an octave. “I do not mew. Kittens mew.”

“It sounds kind of like that, actually.” Sharon replied her eyes twinkling. “Only with more abandon.”

“Oh you are in such trouble Captain Raydor,” Brenda pushed Sharon to the mattress an held her down in a fairly good impression of an arm bar (Sharon hadn’t realized Brenda even knew what an arm bar was) and began tickling her mercilessly with her free hand.

“Stop! Stop. Ok I surrender. White flag. Jesus, Brenda Leigh, I’m sorry. Stop.”

“Yes for the love of God please stop,” Rusty’s voice came from the other side of their bedroom door. “I have no idea what you guys are doing in there and I don’t want to know. Ever. There’s not enough brain bleach in the world”, he continued, “But whatever it is, just....just....,no.”   
Brenda and Sharon could hear Rusty’s footsteps hurrying down the hall, no doubt trying to get as far away from the two women as possible.

Sharon’s snort laugh broke the shocked silence.

“Shit” she said, “shit, shit, shit. I guess that answers the burning question of whether or not he keeps his ipod on at night”.

“Go talk to him.” Brenda commanded sotto voce

“Me? YOU go talk to him”, Sharon shooed her lover off the bed.

“What am I supposed to say?” Brenda sounded like she was strangling as she yanked on the yoga pants and tank top that she’d left pooling on the floor next to the bed the night before. 

“I don’t know,” Sharon said mildly “You could could broach the Phillip Stroh re-trial. I know it’s bound to be bothering him and sometimes he responds better to discussing it with you than with me.” 

“And how’s that supposed to work out?” Brenda huffed, her eyes wild around the edges, “ ‘Rusty I know I was just in the bedroom making your future step-mother see God but how y’all feelin’ about bein’ a witness at the new trial of a man who tried to murder you in my kitchen’?”

“I’m sure you’ll muddle through,” Sharon sauntered toward the bathroom. “I need a shower.” She wiggled her fingers at Brenda, mimicking the blonde’s signature Southern wave. Brenda stuck out her tongue.

“You owe me for this Capt’n Raydor.”

“Payback will be a religious experience. I promise.”


	2. It's Complicated

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all my apologies for the length of time it took to get this chapter up. I had every intention of trying to update this work once a week but real life and the responsibilities of adulting have made it very difficult to find the time to write. This chapter picks up right where the first one left off and it did NOT go where I thought it would. I hope y'all like it - there are certain parts of Brenda and Sharon's beginnings that, apparently, I wanted to explore. As always comments make me type faster.

Rusty didn’t try to hide his smile as he wandered down the hall into the kitchen. If he had to rate on a weighted scale the level of discomfort overhearing Sharon and Brenda having sex caused him, Rusty figured it landed somewhere close to a minus four in the sum total of really embarrassing things in his life he’d had to endure. 

But it was fun to yank their chain. 

All things considered he was happy that Sharon had Brenda in her life. It seemed to him like she’d been alone far too long and sacrificed far too much for her children, her career, and now even for him, that she deserved a partner who actually loved her. 

Rusty hadn’t been privy to all the ins and outs of Brenda’s departure and Sharon’s entrance to Major Crimes but he’d been around enough to see how hard Sharon had to work to gain the trust of her new squad. They certainly hadn’t wanted to give up the Chief and they’d all gotten used to the way Brenda Leigh Johnson ran things. But Sharon wasn’t a closer and it had taken time and a certain amount of push-back to bring her boys into line. 

Poor Sharon, spending her days with people who made it quite clear she wasn’t really wanted, trying to prove she was competent and gain their trust, and her evenings with him waging an uphill battle. He’d been surly, combative and at the end of the day he hadn’t want her either. 

He’d wanted Brenda. 

Sharon had taken that blow on the chin with such patience and forbearance that looking back on it Rusty still cringed.

Brenda. 

It always came back to Brenda and that was why even though their relationship came as a surprise there was a part of him that hadn’t really been very shocked the night he’d come home, a few months after he’d started living with Sharon, to find his new legal guardian and the woman who’d saved his life entwined on the sofa, making out with such fervour they hadn’t even heard him open the front door. 

He’d tip-toed down the hall to his room and silently slipped inside. When he awoke the following morning Brenda hadn’t been there and Sharon’s expression had been as neutral as ever. 

“How was the movie with Buzz?” she’d asked him while calmly stirring milk into her coffee. “I didn’t hear you come home.”

“I was trying to be quiet,” he’d replied. “You and Brenda seemed pretty busy.” 

Rusty opened the cupboard and grabbed the cereal, remembering the look on Sharon’s face.

She’d just stared at him, holding the spoon from her coffee comically in mid-air, a flush spreading up her cheeks, eyes wide, with dawning with horror.

“Rusty…I, Oh God….I’m so sorry. We didn’t mean for you to….”, she had been babbling. And in a completely uncharacteristic gesture, Rusty had walked around the island and put his arms around her in an awkward hug. He remembered thinking it was probably the first time he’d ever embraced her willingly. She’d smelled of shampoo and vanilla and in that moment something shifted. Looking back Rusty realized it was probably when he finally decided to stop fighting the fact that he truly wanted to let her into his life.

“It’s ok Sharon, really.” he’d awkwardly patted her back, once, twice, then pulled away and slouched against the counter. “Brenda’s great.”  
 Sharon had only reddened even more. “And if she makes you happy, well then I’m happy for you.” he’d finished lamely.

“Rusty,” Sharon took his hand. “I have been meaning to talk to you about this. About Brenda, and I. But I was trying to find the right time. And things have been,” she had paused, “difficult for you and I didn’t…”

“You didn’t think I could handle it,” Rusty had finished for her.

“No, Rusty, I just felt like you needed my undivided attention. You’ve had enough upheaval to your living situation. It seemed important to not to add anything else.” Sharon’s green eyes had been soft, tender, the way they so often were when she looked at him. Rusty’s heart had ached. Why had his own mother never once looked at him that way?

“Sharon, really, it’s cool”, he’d assured her, “Although maybe we should have like a code or something? You know like a tie on the door handle when she’s over.”

“A tie? On the door handle?” Sharon’s voice had been incredulous. 

“Yeah, because like you said I’ve been traumatized enough already and there are some things I really don’t need to know. Are you sure you want to date a woman who wears underwear with “A+ ASS” written on it?”

“Well if the shoe fits, or in this case the underwear…” she’d retorted.

 “Jesus, Sharon.” Rusty had clapped his hands over his ears and made a huge show of being disgusted. But secretly Rusty had suddenly realized he felt happier than he could ever remember. It had actually felt good to be happy. It had felt good to be with Sharon.

It still felt good to be with Sharon. 

Rusty opened the fridge, grabbed the milk and sloshed it over his cereal.

It was good to be with Brenda, too. She’d gradually moved what little of her possessions she actually wanted to keep into Sharon’s condo and Rusty realized that life with Sharon intrinsically came with Brenda in it as well.

He sat at the island lost in thought, absently spooning cereal into his mouth. His phone buzzed and Rusty jumped. He shot it a small glare and pushed it away with his spoon.

Sometimes technology was a pain in the ass. It made him far too accessible to people he wasn’t sure he wanted to talk to. Well, not people. Just one person in particular. His phone buzzed again and Rusty sighed and grudgingly picked it up. 

One old message from a couple of weeks ago.

J: Hey dude what’s up? Haven’t see u since grad. U still owe me that chess rematch :).

Two new messages.

J: Ok so u don’t want to play chess. Got it. Kinda wanted to talk about what happened at the beach.

J: I think u owe me at least a conversation.

The sentences blinked up at him like an accusation. He was still staring at the screen when Brenda sauntered into the kitchen. Rusty dropped the phone onto the counter.

“Glad to see you treatin’ your technology with the same amount of respect as I do.” Brenda headed straight for the coffee maker. 

“It’s more like,” Rusty started, “You know when I told Sharon that I have absolutely no friends, that wasn’t totally the truth.” 

“She’ll be relieved,” Brenda replied, raking her fingers through the riot of curls on her head, trying to tame them behind her ears. 

She looked at the young man standing in front of her. He was obviously troubled about something and Brenda fought the urge to skip the coffee and retreat back to Sharon and the bedroom. Put her in a room with a stone-cold killer and she knew exactly what to do. Face her with a troubled teen and suddenly she felt completely lost. Brenda was sure that was a sign that something had gone haywire in her development but most of the time she was just able to put it out of her mind. She had a feeling this morning that she wasn’t going to get off so easy.

“I take it there’s more to the issue than not tellin’ Sharon you’re friendly with someone?”  
   
Rusty shrugged and looked away.

“Am I right in assumin’ that the the situation with this ‘friend’ of yours is a little more complicated?”

Rusty reddened and pushed the dregs of his soggy cereal around the bottom of his bowl.

“No. Maybe. I don’t know.” He sighed and resolutely kept his eyes off the hunk of black plastic he’d abandoned on the counter.

“Does this mystery friend have a name?” Brenda prodded.

“Jonathan,” Rusty conceded. “His name is Jonathan. He’s a year older than me but we were in the same pre-calc class. Not because he’s stupid, just that his parents thought it would be a brilliant idea to take him out of school his senior year to ‘travel the world and learn how other cultures live’. Broadening your horizons is great but it doesn’t get you into a good college. So we ended up in the same class. He was, like, the only normal person there. Well as normal as a math geek can get I guess.”

“And obviously he likes you?” Brenda leaned against the counter cradling the mug of hot coffee in her hands.

Rusty nodded.

“And this is a problem because?” 

“No, Brenda you don’t get it. I like him, l mean I ‘really’ like him. And then something happened that makes it pretty clear that the feeling's mutual.” Rusty looked as though he wanted to crawl under the counter and never come out.

Brenda poured her coffee and silently counted to ten. This was not the conversation she’d envisioned having with the boy when she’d crept out of the bedroom and in light of where it was headed, a discussion about Phillip Stroh the murdering serial rapist, in fact a discussion about any murdering serial rapist, would have been preferable. She was still searching for a platitude or some pithy piece of advice when Rusty continued.

“Lieutenant Provenza told me that he can show me a lot of things but that I’m going to have to learn about being gay on my own.”

“Rusty, this conversation is givin’ me whiplash. Are we talkin’ about Lieutenant Provenza, Jonathan or both?” 

“And then he told me,” Rusty went on as if she hadn’t spoken, “to go look up the Village People.”

Brenda suppressed a laugh. That sounded exactly like the encouraging and sensitive Louie Provenza she’d come to know and, mostly, love.

“Have you heard the Village People?” his voice was slightly outraged, “Have you SEEN them?”  

“Well they were never exactly my music of choice,” Brenda muttered.

“You know Brenda I’m really out of my depth here. What if I’m just not that person who likes the Village People or show tunes, or whatever? I’m not great at decorating. And it just seems like there’s this whole other world out there that I’m somehow supposed to understand being a part of and none of it makes any sense to me at all.”

Brenda gently set her coffee cup down and reached out and briefly touched Rusty’s cheek. 

“Rusty, trust me, there is no ‘right way’ to be gay.” 

“Really?” he sighed, “Because it seems to me like there’s a right way and a wrong way to do just about everything.”

“Really,” Brenda continued. “If there were a ‘Rainbow Gayness’ rulebook out there I can promise you I would still be married to Fritz. But what’s this really about Rusty. It’s not really Lieutenant Provenza you’re worried about is it?”

Rusty’s shoulders slumped and he shook his head.

“What is it then?”

“Jonanthan’s just so, so good.” Rusty said quietly and the anguish in his voice was almost too much for Brenda to bear. “You know two years ago he was building houses in Africa and volunteering at an orphanage in Guatemla, learning whatever it is the indigenious peoples in Borneo have to do to survive when I was, well I was….” 

“Bein’ chased by a murderer, callin’ the police and tossin’ a cell phone into a dumpster in Hollywood.” Brenda finished for him. “Doin’ what you had to do to survive.”

“Everyone says it like I’m some kind of hero. But I’m not.” Rusty stood clenching and unclenching his fists. “Those things…those things were like being an animal. It was like I was an animal…..When Jonathan finds out, and for sure he will, how is he supposed to separate what I did with who I am? I’m not even sure I can…..” he choked on his words, raw and naked. “Jesus, Brenda even my own mother can’t and she sure as hell won’t let me forget it”. 

And with that Brenda went to him, drawing his head down to her shoulder cradling him, her arms wrapped tightly around his back. In that moment she fervently wished it had been her, not Sharon, to give Rusty’s mother a damn good piece of her mind. She would have been far less diplomatic. In fact she could have quite cheerfully strangled her with her own prison bedsheets. 

Instead she simply held the boy as he sobbed, whispering nothing words over and over into his ear because in that moment nothing was the only comforting thing she could say that wouldn’t come out sounding like a lie.

His tears were violent but like a summer storm they stopped almost as quickly as they’d begun. He straightened up and Brenda looked at him, a crooked smile playing at the corners of her mouth. “Rusty, there’s a reason that Jonathan likes you. The people who see who we really are, who care best about us can accept the things in our past They don’t have to love all of those things but, they can accept them. Maybe you’re just not giving Jonathan enough credit.”

Rusty moved away from her and wiped at his eyes, then turned and picked up his phone. 

It’s probably too late anyway. I’ve sort of, well I’ve sort of been ignoring him.”

“You’d be surprised how forgivin’ people can be when you ignore them”, Brenda said drily. “How long have you been avoidin’ Jonathan? A couple of weeks, tops?”

“I guess,” Rusty conceded. “Maybe more like three.”

“I managed to ignore Sharon for goin’ on three months and look where we ended up,” Brenda countered. “Although a certain amount of the credit for us gettin’ together has to go to the attending physician at St. Catherine’s.”

“Ok…what? Seriously?” Rusty’s eyes widened. He settled into one of the chairs in front of the island and propped his chin in his hands waiting for Brenda to continue.

“That last year was pretty horrible, between the lawsuit, Will pesterin’ me to get results, tryin’ to hang onto my division; my marriage was fallin’ apart and Sharon was like a permanent, frustratin’ fixture in my life. I started havin’ nightmares about her and I fightin’ over the remote control to the murder board, and it kept goin’ up and down and up and down, all on its’ own courtesy of the Fraud department. Or Lieutenant Flynn. I don’t know. He was always the one drawing little black witches with brooms, and I was tryin’ cover them up. I started hatin’ those dry erase markers.”

Rusty laughed.  

“Anyway, all those late nights Sharon and I spent together in Will’s office goin’ over depositions, and for heaven’s sake, that woman’s,” Brenda jabbed her index finger in the general direction of the bedroom she shared with Sharon, “that woman’s relentless attention to detail, her mind-numbin’ ability to review the same material over and over made me seriously consider murder. I swear it did. But then things started to change and somewhere along the way I realized I wasn’t fantasizin’ about whackin’ her over the head with Pope’s stapler to shut her up anymore, I was dreamin’ about kissin’ her instead.”

Brenda looked at Rusty, rapt and wide-eyed as he waited for what came next.  
   
She didn’t know how much she could actually tell him or how to make him understand what had happened. In a strange way the entire, terrible year bled together like one long, waking dream, but there were pockets of memories, polaroid flashes, that still burned more brightly than anything she’d ever remembered about herself. 

Brenda could recall exactly what she’d been wearing in court the day of the summary judgement, the fight she’d had with Fritz on the way in - it was about how she’d forgotten to feed Joel, again. 

She remembered rubbing her hands on her skirt because they were soaked, sure the judge was going to find against her. As she’d watched the gavel come down, heard its customary thud, so much like the sound of the squad car door as it thudded closed that day she and David had left Tyrell Baylor to the only justice she could serve, there was a moment in between where she was sure the judge had found her guilty.

Because she was guilty. She knew it. Everyone knew it. Most of all, Sharon knew it, but it was Sharon who had never once tried to rationalize what Brenda had done, neither did she condone it, she had simply accepted Brenda for who she was and stood next to her anyway. 

A guilty verdict meant no more Major Crimes. No more Parker Centre. No more Chief Johnson, but most of all, no more Captain Raydor. How was she supposed to get through her days without Sharon? 

And then she’d slammed back into reality. The verdict was hers and she’d flung herself around in her chair, already seeking the one face she needed to see, the only face she wanted to see. 

Sharon. 

Not Will. 

Not Fritzi. 

Not even Gavin, her masterful and very expensive, lawyer. 

But Sharon.

Brenda remembered how the Captain’s eyes had sought out her own, her fingers steepled together as if she’d been praying. Sharon’s hands had covered her mouth but Brenda could see she was smiling. The moss green of her eyes were dancing behind those heavy, black frames and suddenly Brenda had just wanted to stay like that forever, locked in Sharon’s gaze. 

And it was then when Brenda’s terror turned from being found guilty as negligent in a suspect’s death, to instead being exposed for something far more difficult to comprehend. It was in that moment Brenda had realized she was in love with Sharon Raydor. And that knowledge had scared her almost to death.

Another polaroid flash went off behind her eyes. 

Her last day in Major Crimes and ‘see y’all later’ was how you said goodbye in the South. Her eyes had raked the murder room for the one person who really mattered. But the Captain hadn’t been there.

Brenda remembered standing in the elevator so emotionally wrung out that she couldn’t tell whether the pain she felt was from pinched feet from her terrible shoe decision that morning, or the ache in her chest. Tears unsprung behind her eyes, she’d pawed through her ubiquitous black bag and found her solace. The ding-dong was stale but the sugar hit her system and for a moment it could blot out the fact that she was walking toward a job she didn’t really want and away from the women she did.

“I didn’t realize you were leaving so soon,” the Captain’s voice was low as she stepped onto the elevator. “Heading down?”

“There’s nothin’ much left to clear up,” she’d mumbled through the dark chocolate cake, “And I’m not one for long goodbyes.” 

“Knowing you, I wouldn’t expect you to say goodbye at all. I should have come up sooner. To give you my regards. Chief.” 

Sharon offered her hand and when Brenda took it she couldn’t help her sharp intake of breath as the brunette’s hand slid into hers. In one dizzying moment she imagined what the Captain would do if she interlaced their fingers and pulled her closer.

“I’ll only be over at the DA’s, and that’s just a shake of a lamb’s tail and I don’t suppose I’ll be forever goin’ first over there, Captain.” Brenda emphasized Sharon’s rank in a variation of what she’d hoped might be their own private joke. Sharon’s hand was warm and Brenda realized she hadn’t let go. “I really am just plain Brenda now.”

“Somehow I don’t think the DA’s office ever will see you as just plain anything,” Sharon stepped closer, “Brenda……Leigh.” 

Brenda shivered, the ding dong in her other hand forgotten entirely.

She’d gently withdrawn her hand but Sharon hadn’t stepped away and for one insane moment Brenda imagined herself reaching past the other woman, hitting the ‘emergency stop button', and finally indulging in all the things she’d been waiting so desperately to do to Sharon every time they’d been alone together for the past six months.

“If you’re not busy later, maybe you could join me at Lift, for drinks. I mean a drink. To celebrate. You like bourbon, right?” 

“I’d be happy to join you and Agent Howard to help toast your success,” Sharon lifted one eyebrow but the corner of her mouth had twitched as she’d tried not to smile.

“Oh Fritzi, I mean Agent Howard, we’re not….” Brenda stammered and then collected herself. “Agent Howard and I are separated, actually. Maybe another time….” her voice trailed off. She reflexively lifted the last of her forgotten ding-dong and shoved it in her mouth.

“Oh no, I‘d be delighted to join you, Chief” and Sharon had moved closer.

“Brenda,” the blonde corrected.

“Old habits die hard, “ Sharon countered and then leaned over. 

Oh God the Captain was going to kiss her and Brenda closed her eyes, her head dizzy with anticipation. She felt lightest of feather touches across her bottom lip and she involuntarily shuddered. Her skin burned where Sharon had brushed her and Brenda’s eyes flew open.

“Whipped cream,” Sharon said. She might as well have been speaking Swahili.  

“The ding dong?” Sharon brushed at her own cheek, demonstrating as if Brenda was a particularly slow child. “You had whipped cream on your face.”

“Oh for heaven’s sake” Brenda’s hand flew to the side of her mouth. “I’m just nothin’ but a big ole mess. Thank you, Captain.” 

“Sharon,” the older woman corrected. 

“All right then, Sharon,” she tried the name out, rolling it on her tongue, loving the way it sounded in her mouth. “How ‘bout seven o’ clock?”  
   
“It’s a date,” Sharon had said as the doors slipped open and Brenda stepped off the elevator. 

“Oh and Chief,” Brenda turned as the doors started to close, “Don’t be late.” 

And she hadn’t been late. 

Because she hadn’t shown up at all. 

She’d meant to go. She honestly had meant to go, obviously, as she’d been the one to invite Sharon in the first place. 

Brenda had agonized over what to wear, finally deciding on the singular black cocktail dress she had in her closet. She’d even bothered to do something with her hair finally using the salon-grade flat iron she’d had in the bottom drawer of her vanity. She’d been standing in front of the mirror in her new apartment, an apartment decidedly devoid of any trace of her soon-to-be ex husband and their shared cat, putting on a shade of lipstick that she’d hoped would be subtle and yet inviting when, it hit her that she was acting like a giddy teenager getting ready for her first date.

Brenda had let the lipstick fall to the counter, selected a tissue and very slowly wiped the colour off her lips. Her hand had been shaking. From fear or sadness, she wasn’t quite sure. What she had been certain of was that she had no idea how to go on a date with Sharon Raydor. 

So she’d simply stayed home.

Seven o’ clock came and went and at seven forty-five, after three large glasses of merlot when her cell phone started buzzing, the wine had made it that much easier to just turn the damn thing off.

“You stood Sharon up? Wow. Classy.” 

Rusty’s voice shook Brenda out of her reverie. She’d been so deep in recounting her memories she’d forgotten that the boy was actually there.

“I did,” Brenda sighed. “I’ll admit that wasn’t one of my finer moments.”

“But you must have called her the next day, right?” 

Brenda shook her head.  “Ok the next week,” Rusty countered. 

Brenda kept on shaking her head. 

“Or, what, NEVER?” it was beginning to dawn on him. “You’re telling me you never called her?” 

“Rusty I don’t know if you've noticed this about me but when I get somethin’ in my head I can be frustratingly persistent. I was very persistent in my ignorin’ of Sharon Raydor.”  
   
“Well how the hell did you guys ever get together then? Smoke signals?” Rusty asked

“Well that’s that part where things get interestin’,” Brenda answered.

“Like they aren’t already completely fascinating.” Rusty replied. “You guys are a like a cheesy cop episode of Gray’s Anatomy.”

Brenda reached over and smacked Rusty’s shoulder. “You want to hear the rest of the story or not?”

“Ow, yes,” he rubbed his shoulder. “I won’t interrupt. Just don’t hit me again. For someone so little you’re surprisingly strong.”

“It was about three months later and I was standin’ in the ladies’ bathroom at work in the DA’s office. It’s quiet in there and I like readin’ my files in peace,” Brenda explained. “It’s been my experience that people are far less likely to pester you when you’re in the bathroom.”  

“I was goin’ through this stack of witness statements when Sharon marches through the door,” Brenda smiled at the memory. “She was wearin’ one of those pencil-skirt suits ’n’ stiletto combinations of hers and her hair was perfectly done up like it had been ironed by the Anti-Frizz League of America. Damn did she look pissed off.”

“What did she do when she saw you,” Rusty asked?

“Probably forgot all about how angry she was with Andrea Hobbs on account of how furious she was with me,” Brenda replied. “We just stood there starin’ at one another. I think she managed to acknowledge my presence by addressin’ me as ‘Special Investigator Johnson. She was vibratin’ she was so mad.”

Brenda smiled.

“All I could think of was how utterly beautiful she was and how much I’d missed her.” 

“It was completely awkward and she wasn’t going to actually use the bathroom, not with me standin’ there so I picked up my files which were like the leanin’ tower of Pisa and I thought I’d give her some privacy. Of course my hands were shakin’ and I dropped half of them on the ground.”

“Awkward,” Rusty stated the obvious.

“She didn’t offer to pick them up and I at least had the decency not to ask her to help me. Actually, I gave up when I saw that she was turning around to leave. I wanted to stop her. To explain everythin’. To make her understand. I know it sounds crazy but I had this overpowerin’ feelin’ that if I let her walk out that door I’d never see her again.”

“So as she was openin’ the door I reached out and grabbed her arm and pulled her back into the bathroom. And I kissed her.” 

“Jesus Brenda. You go three months without talking to the woman and then you just full on accost her in a public bathroom?” Rusty’s eyes were wide. “How’d that go over?”

“Like two drunken idiots dirty dancin’ at a karaoke bar after about fifteen martini’s,” Brenda replied. “But at first she just stood there. I think she was too shocked to respond.”

Brenda remember when Sharon finally HAD responded, she’d crushed her mouth so hard against Brenda’s that later her lips had been bruised. Then just as quickly she’d pushed Brenda away, her eyes wild. They’d both been panting and Brenda could feel the other woman’s ragged gasps hot against her cheek. And then Sharon had been on her, pulling at Brenda’s hair, yanking the curls out of their loose bun, her mouth seeking Brenda’s and the blonde could feel, rather than hear, Sharon’s cries. 

There had been too much space between them and Sharon had pulled Brenda closer. As their kisses had intensified Brenda ripped Sharon’s shirt from the waistband of her skirt, and her fingers had skittered along the sensitive skin of Sharon’s belly. The older woman had gasped and Brenda remembered thinking, vaguely, that if anyone had needed to use the bathroom at that moment they would have had a front row seat to the DA’s Special Investigator tearing the clothes off of the captain of the Major Crimes Division. 

Brenda had decided she didn’t care. 

All that mattered was Sharon’s hands in her hair. Sharon’s tongue teasing against hers, Sharon’s teeth nipping at the side of Brenda’s neck. She’d slid her hands further under Sharon’s shirt to cup her breasts. Sharon had instinctively tried to slide her knee between Brenda’s legs, forgetting the restriction of her skirt.

It was then that things had started to go terribly awry.

“She tripped,” Brenda told Rusty. “Which on the face of it wouldn’t have been so bad but half my file folders were still on the ground and she caught on of those ridiculous heels she wears on an edge or somethin’ and suddenly she’s topplin’ over and she smacked the back of her head on the sink. Sort of knocked herself out.”

“How do you ‘sort of’ knock yourself out?” Rusty managed to look horrified and howl with laughter all at the same time. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. It’s not funny. I know, I shouldn’t laugh.”

“No you shouldn’t”, Brenda pouted and pulled at the end of one errant curl.

“You stood Sharon up, total radio silence, and the first time she happens to run into you, completely by chance, you throw yourself at her? Smooth seduction strategy. 

“It was an accident”, Brenda huffed. “She wasn’t exactly an unwillin’ participant.”

“Nothing says I love you like a concussion.”

Brenda whirled around at the sound of Sharon’s voice.

She was leaning against the back of the sofa, ankles crossed and a knowing smile on her face.

“How long have you been standin’ there?” Brenda asked her face red with embarrassment.

“Long enough to hear you trying your damnedest to put yourself in the very best light all the while confessing your utter failure in the art of seduction,” Sharon was smiling.

“Well clearly it wasn’t a complete failure,” Brenda mumbled and caught her bottom lip with her teeth in an unconscious gesture that Sharon could hardly resist.

“A chance encounter in a bathroom does not a seduction make,” Sharon replied. “And what makes you so certain, Investigator Johnson, that our meeting was accidental? Did you ever stop to wonder what the statistical chances of “bumping into me” that day truly are?”

“Pretty low, actually,” Rusty chimed in his eyes going back and forth between the two women, fascinated.

“You didn’t….You planned it? You knew where I’d be?” Brenda’s voice was incredulous.

“Of course I did. I called ahead and Andrea Hobbs told me. Although it wasn’t much of a stretch, Sugar. Everyone in the department knew that you’d read your files in the bathroom when you were in Major Crimes. It was the source of an ongoing joke in FID for years.” Sharon sauntered toward her lover and took the coffee cup out of her hands before Brenda could drop it on the floor.

“More coffee?” 

“Andrea Hobbs?” Brenda’s voice sounded strangled.  
   
“Yes, Andrea Hobbs,” Sharon confirmed. “She said you’d been sulking about something pretty much from the time you started working for the DA’s office. She actually called me and asked if I could shed some light on why you were so miserable.”

  “Sulkin’? Really? Sulkin’?” 

“Her words, not mine,” Sharon put her hands up in a mollifying gesture.  
   
“So, instead of you seducing her,” Rusty pointed from Brenda to Sharon, “she seduced you?” His eyes landed back on Brenda.

“But you were so mad,” Brenda said slowly and shook her head. “Full on Darth Raydor mad.”

“I was acting,” Sharon’s lips curved in a hint of a smile and she arched one eyebrow. “You’re not the only one who knows how to use certain emotional triggers to get a confession out of her suspect.”

Brenda crossed her arms over her chest and stared wide-eyed at the brunette. It was like an entirely new facet of Sharon’s personality was unfolding before her eyes.

“So what about the face plant into the sink?” Rusty asked. “You didn’t plan that to did you?”

“No,” Sharon mused, “the concussion was an unfortunate accident, but I was still able to use it to my advantage. It solved the problem of how I was going to convince Brenda to stay the night with me.”

“I slept on the couch if you remember,” Brenda said indignantly. 

“For at least part of the night anyway,” Sharon smiled and patted Brenda’s arm and then leaned over and kissed her lightly on the side of the mouth.

“Ok, thanks. No more information needed,” Rusty laughed. “Really. I’m good.”

Rusty reached across the counter and picked up his phone. He was feeling better about things. If there was hope for Brenda there definitely had to be hope for him.

“What brought on this spontaneous retelling of our illustrious beginnings anyway?” Sharon asked as she poured herself a cup of coffee.

“Oh, Rusty was just askin’ for some…..” Brenda paused, “friendship advice.”

“You have a friend?” Sharon turned toward Rusty her eyes alight.

“Jeez, Sharon you make it sound like I’m a total social outcast.”

“Rusty, I’m sorry, that came out completely incorrectly,” Sharon apologized and then her eyes narrowed. “What kind of ‘friendship’ advice?” She cocked her head to one side.

Rusty felt his phone vibrate and he shuffled his feet, suddenly eager to get out of the kitchen.

“I’ll let Brenda fill you in. I have something I gotta do.” 

Rusty loped out of the room and the two women heard his door slam.

“Well that was all very cryptic,” Sharon stared in the direction of Rusty’s room a puzzled look on her face.

Brenda pulled Sharon close until she could feel the taller woman’s hips against hers. She tipped her face upward and smiled.

“Oh, only about as cryptic as a teenage boy navigatin’ the murky waters of first love,” and before Sharon could speak she gently captured the brunette’s lips with her own in a lingering kiss.  
   
Sharon pulled away. 

“I should go talk to him,” she murmured.  
   
“I don’t think it’s you he needs to work things out with,” Brenda whispered against Sharon’s mouth. “And if I have anythin’ to say about it you’ve done all the talkin’ you need to do for right now.”


End file.
